The mathematics of protest
I'm willing to be corrected, but I believe the largest protest ever in the UK was over the Iraq war and had (it's claimed) 1 million people. Obviously the true figure is unknowable, and that's a psychologically significant point (Louis Farrakhan wanted a "Million Man March" on Washington, in a country with 4-5x the population, as that would be a major event), so let's go with it.
There are over 60 million people in the UK, and the largest ever protest managed to attract less than 2% of that number. Maybe as low as 1% of the population depending on which sources you believe. Maybe we can be generous and raise the number because some people couldn't get time off work/afford the trip/protested elsewhere/etc - perhaps 5%?
This means that, in the absolute best case, to go on a protest you care more about an issue than 95% of the population. That's a two-sigma deviation from the mean, the gold standard for scientific significance, and only one inevitable conclusion can be drawn from that fact...
Everyone who goes on a protest march is, by definition, an extremist
There are over 60 million people in the UK, and the largest ever protest managed to attract less than 2% of that number. Maybe as low as 1% of the population depending on which sources you believe. Maybe we can be generous and raise the number because some people couldn't get time off work/afford the trip/protested elsewhere/etc - perhaps 5%?
This means that, in the absolute best case, to go on a protest you care more about an issue than 95% of the population. That's a two-sigma deviation from the mean, the gold standard for scientific significance, and only one inevitable conclusion can be drawn from that fact...
Everyone who goes on a protest march is, by definition, an extremist